If you want a smart watch that uses cellular data without using up the battery, consider upgrading to the Samsung Gear S3. A close cousin to the Gear Sport, the S3 has all the perks of an LTE smart device (downloading apps, texting, checking email) and, unlike the Apple Series 3, it won’t quit after three hours. In fact, you could feasibly get 72 hours out of this LTE version of the Samsung Gear Sport.
If you’re into premium smartwatches, the Montblanc Summit is the latest option hitting watch shops around the world. Out of the box, it runs atop Android Wear 2.0 with the standard specifications — Snapdragon Wear 2100, 512mb of RAM, and 4GB of storage. There’s no NFC or LTE on board, but the watch does feature a heart rate sensor and premium materials.
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The watch also has a new 1.2-inch 390×390 display which is a full circle and OLED this time around, providing punchier colors compared to the previous WSD-F20. It also still packs the dual-display technology with a special mode that turns off Wear OS and can provide up to 4 weeks of battery life. Standard usage will last around 1-1.5 days of use on a charge while a new “Extend” mode provides up to 3 days while using offline maps and GPS. Pricing lands at $549 and the watch will be available in January.
Samsung’s Gear Sport is not as stylish as Fossil’s Q watches, and because it runs Samsung’s Tizen operating system instead of Wear OS, it has nowhere near the app support of Wear OS. But as a smartwatch that shows your phone notifications and lets you respond to them, lasts all day, and tracks your recreational workouts, it is a great device. It’s not meant for competitive speed training, but it has built-in GPS and heart-rate sensing, offline Spotify storage, and a rotating bezel that’s much easier to use while exercising than a touchscreen. It does suffer from weak voice transcription and a barely-there S Voice “assistant,” but it fits a lot of core smartwatch functions into a relatively smart-looking package that’s better for fitness-minded wearers than our top picks.
As a piece of hardware, the Gear Sport is probably the best smartwatch we’ve used. It’s not stylish, it has deep flaws in its voice software, and it’s only a beginner-level fitness tracker. But if you want a smartwatch that has a bit of fitness motivation—and if you also happen to have a Samsung phone, or might get a deal on a bundle of phone and watch—the Gear Sport is a good option.
If you want the app, notification, and style advantages of an Apple Watch but need better fitness tracking, you can upgrade to the Apple Watch Series 3 and get built-in GPS, as well as waterproofing that allows swim tracking. But the Series 3 costs more than a fitness tracker or even many running watches, and it still has compromises compared with a dedicated fitness tracker, such as a lack of dedicated physical buttons. We think serious athletes are better served by a fitness-specific device.
Two watches from LG, the Watch Sport and Watch Style, were designed in collaboration with Google to launch Android Wear 2.0. The Sport is loaded with features, offering integrated GPS, LTE calls and texting (sharing a phone number with an Android phone), a speaker, a heart-rate monitor, two buttons, a rotating crown, and NFC support for using Android Pay directly from the watch. Reviews, however, suggest that the Sport suffers for those add-ons in thickness, comfort, and appearance. The Style, for $100 less than the Sport, is thinner and more comfortable; it offers Bluetooth and Wi-Fi but has a look that The Verge’s Dan Seifert describes as “kind of cheap” with a “homely design.” Neither model is easy to find at online vendors, especially in all colors.

The screen is great, and the pre-installed watch faces make it stand out from rivals. Android Wear feels very samey across all devices, but it's a well developed OS. It's reasonably intuitive and simple, but there's a little too much swiping and tapping on the small screen. It also works across both Android and iOS, although iPhone functionality is limited (no apps etc.)

Several of them also now support wireless charging which is hugely valuable as you avoid adding yet another cable and cradle to your dresser. Wireless charging pads are on the market that will charge your compatible iPhone and watch at the same time, and Apple is set to release its own official charging pad dubbed AirPower. Wireless charging is also available for Samsung smartphones and smartwatches.
The Samsung Gear Live is the first of the company’s smartwatches to be compatible with any Android phone running Android 4.3 or higher; other Gear models can be paired only with specific Samsung phones. Like the LG G Watch and Moto 360, it runs the Android Wear OS, allowing voice commands and pushing relevant information to the wearer. Compared with the LG G Watch, we prefer the style and fit of the Gear Live. The watch body is slightly curved, which made it more comfortable. The Gear Live also has a heart-rate monitor, which the G Watch lacks.

A smart watch is nice to have and it can be a neat buffer when deciding if you want to answer an incoming call or let it go to voicemail. Smart watches with apps for fitness and travel are also a lot more convenient in some cases than having your smartphone. However, if you prefer to use your iPhone for these and other activities, you probably won’t get much more out of a smart watch.

Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch is the one to get if you need a smartwatch that can do it all. In our full review, we mentioned that it’s a fantastic all-around smartwatch, fitness, and health tracker. It has a great display, solid build, comes with Samsung Pay support, and offers wireless charging. Plus, the Tizen operating system has tons of great apps and watch faces.

Apple Watch is crisp, beautiful, high-resolution screen that’s smaller than an Oreo cookie. No surprise, Apple knows what they’re doing when they design a home product. Much like the other additions to the Apple suite, the Series 3 is sleek and stylish. Everything from the navigation to the screen layouts has been optimized to utilize the space given rather than be constricted by it.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: The Vívosport’s screen is highly sensitive to incidental brushes and touches; we ended up activating the screen auto-lock feature, a small annoyance. Compared with a dedicated GPS running watch, the GPS tracking on any fitness band takes longer to connect to satellites; and it’s easier to see your pace and other statistics on a running watch’s larger LCD screen while moving than on a fitness band’s relatively miniscule display. Garmin doesn’t have the motivating social network of Fitbit, so it’s less likely that your friends or coworkers will connect and challenge you, or that a corporate fitness challenge will work with your Vívosport. A fitness band falls short of a full-featured smartwatch, because typically it won’t give you a voice assistant, let you install apps, or let you interact with phone notifications, and many of those notifications will be difficult to read on the Vívosport’s small screen.
The Nixon Mission is a rugged 'action' smartwatch, and we really like it. The durable casing can take a bashing, while the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 keeps things ticking inside. It runs Android Wear, but also comes with some useful pre-installed apps which track real-time surfing and snowboarding conditions. It's water resistant to 10ATM (roughly 100m), and best of all, it comes in Orange.
Our 19 contenders all promised to give us some distance from our phones by notifying us of incoming calls and texts. But we found that some smart watches were much slower than others at letting us know we had a call. It turns out the quality of the bluetooth connection determines how quickly you’ll be notified, with our worst performers only registering the call with two seconds to spare before diverting to voicemail (yes you, Montblanc) while others simply failed to display any calls at all.